


The Under Kingdom

by jannah (fromjannah)



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex Mercer Has Anxiety (Julie and the Phantoms), Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Gen, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Tags to be added, forgive any grammar errors i am jared 19, no beta we insert reference here, this is a whole mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromjannah/pseuds/jannah
Summary: On his winter break, Alex Mercer, Prince of the Spring Kingdom, somehow accidentally falls into the Under Kingdom. It's a strange situation indeed, but he assumes it'll be over soon. Plus, with a cute citizen of the kingdom with him, maybe it'll be nice to get an escape from his family. But his stay is extending awfully long, and it's worrying his friends. Who knows what the Lord of the Under Kingdom has planned?or,willex urbanish fantasyish royaltyish au inspired very loosely by the story of hades and persephone.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	The Under Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST CHAPTERED JATP FIC LET'S GOO!! i'm notoriously horrible at chaptered works so here's to hoping i won't abandon this!!

Alex rubbed his arms to ward off the sudden chill, staring up, squinting. It was all dark and his eyes hadn't adjusted quite yet -- all he could tell was that he had fallen on his back, onto a hard stone floor. It couldn't have been a particularly steep fall, because nothing was hurting too much, though the floor was very solid; you'd think something would've broken. 

"Hello?" he called out and then clamped his mouth shut -- _shouldn't have done that shouldn't have done that._ He stood up slowly, reaching up an arm to try to touch a ceiling, but it was too high. Not a low-ceiling room, he noted, licking his lips and pulling down on the sleeves of his pink sweatshirt -- it was _cold_. 

Winter break had just begun, so he had left his dorm at the Four Kingdoms Preparatory School; he had been home for the first time in a few months. It was just as weird and tense as he had remembered so he had went out to the palace's fields to walk off some anxiety -- _model strut!_ he could hear his roommates back at school tease him -- and then... well, he must've fallen.

Alex clenched his jaw, deciding to walk around now. A slight tinge of pain went off in his left leg but that was it. The room was maybe ten paces across and it seemed circular. The motions did nothing to quell the worries, however. He was a prince of the Spring Kingdom, damn it, what if someone had _kidnapped_ him? He wasn't sure how it would've happened, but clearly something had happened. 

He leaned back against the wall, huffing out a long sigh as he tapped a rhythm against the wall in an attempt to focus his energy somewhere. He wished his friends from school were here, or that he had brought his phone with him on his walk, something. What-ifs were fizzing up in his mind, consuming all other modes of thought. _What if they kill me. What if they ransom me. What if what if what if what if --_

After what seemed like an eternity, there was a dull thunking noise from somewhere in the room and part of the circular wall parted opened, light flooding in, warmth as well. Alex reached up a hand to his eyes to avoid being blinded, squinting into the distance. 

"Is there someone there?" asked a voice.

They didn't sound like they had particularly malicious intentions, which is why Alex made the poor decision of answering, "Yes! Yes, there's someone here. It's, um, it's Alex?" He bit his lip, lowering his hand cautiously. Maybe this was just a part of his parent's property that he didn't know about? It was a weak, last-ditch-effort kind of thought. 

A soft light flooded the rest of the room as whoever had come in presumably turned something on. Alex blinked a few times to see a person in the room. He had tan skin and waves of dark hair tumbling over his shoulders, kind eyes and was generally very, very pretty. He certainly didn't look like was a kidnapper. 

"Uh," said the person, blinking a few times, as if in surprise. "How'd you get in here, dude?"

Alex swallowed, averting his eyes for a moment. "I, uh..." He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "I fell?"

The person's eyebrows drew together before he seemed to realize something. "Oh. Huh. You're... you're the Spring Kingdom's prince, aren't you?" He didn't bow or anything; royalty were more like wealthy families than true royalty in their time.

Alex wasn't sure how the person made this jump, but he nodded slowly after a moment. "Yeah. Um, could you... where am I, exactly?" he asked, stepping forward. 

The person was clearly parsing over something in his head. "You're... this is the Under Kingdom," he said, almost gentle.

Alex's jaw slackened and he released another nervous peal of laughter. "I -- _what_?" he said, blinking rapidly. "That's... that's impossible. How'd I -- I'm not _dead_! Are _you_ \-- "

"No!" exclaimed the person quickly, interrupting and putting his hands up in a surrendering motion. "No, no, I'm not. I just live here, I... I work here. You... the constant feuding above ground have been causing a lot of spots between the Realms to thin, so now you're... here."

Alex bit down on his lip, trying to control his breathing, which was speeding up rapidly. "I -- I just fell," he repeated in more of a whisper, gulping down more air and raising his voice. Of course there were people who lived in the Under Kingdom; it was a whole _kingdom,_ but it did have a reputation -- a purpose. "I need to go back. I can't stay here."

"Hey, hey man." The person finally walked out of the doorway, coming a little closer to Alex. "It's okay! 'S all good. I'm Willie, okay? I'll go see what I can do about sending you up soon."

Alex looked into Willie's warm eyes and drew in a more steady breath and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

\---

The circular room had been in some kind of basement of a tall building, Alex saw as he was lead out by Willie, and the tall building was in the center of a bustling city, full of people in cars and motorcycles. The climate was measured and temperate, much like Alex's own kingdom. The sky was a strange, magenta color, and poked through with goldish pinpricks of lights, like strange stars. The city itself seemed like a large metropolis, ordinary enough, save for a long river Alex soon saw snaking around the road. It looked it wasn't full of water, but melted silver. 

The two stopped at a crosswalk, which was right besides the river. A canoe kind of boat came past, which was full of shiny glass jars and lead by a person in a navy cloak.

Each glass jar had an orb of light in it, all different colors and hues. Alex peered at them. "What are those?" he couldn't help and ask.

Willie followed Alex's gaze. "The Gondolas. Those are jarred souls going to Allocation," he said.

"Those are _souls_?" repeated Alex in slight awe. "That's... you just see this all the time?"

Willie's lips quirked and Alex looked away, cheeks flushing. "Yeah. I never really thought about how it would be from an outsider's' perspective," he said. 

Alex shrugged, running a hand through his hair. "Uh, where are we going?"

Willie jerked a chin at something off in the distance -- a futuristic looking skyscraper, a needle into the sky with a cluster of smaller buildings around it. "Administration government kinda place for this area, we're in the capital," he explained, fidgeting with a bracelet on his hand. "We can see what to do with you there."

Alex nodded in understanding, smiling briefly in gratitude. "Okay. Sounds good."

The crossroads light blinked and Willie walked forward quickly, grabbing on Alex's sleeve, pulling him forward. "C'mon, these change fast here in the city center!" 

Alex sped up, absently rubbing where Willie hand's had been. He passed through a crush of people and quietly marveled at the fact that no one noticed him. Out of his whole family, he stayed out of the spotlight the most often, but there were always people recognizing him back in his own kingdom. Here... here he was invisible. 

"Are you parents going to be looking for you?" Willie queried as the two speedily made their way to the administration center on the sidewalk.

Alex grimaced slightly. "Dunno. Probably by tomorrow, I guess. I, um, hole up and stay to myself pretty often," he said, shrugging. "My sister might notice."

"Anyone else?"

"Uh, some of my friends -- I was supposed to call them soon for a thing, they might get worried. We were supposed to meet up in a couple days to practice, too," he continued, thinking to how there was supposed to be a band call soon, and then stopped abruptly in surprise as a motorcyclist came off the road and sped down the sidewalk. 

Willie laughed, teasingly jostling Alex's shoulder. "Your _face_!" 

"Hey, look," Alex said defensively but couldn't help smiling as well, "this is a learning curve for me!"

Willie tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "Yeah, okay, I'll give you that," he said. "You're not doing bad for a country kid."

"I'm barely from the country," protested Alex, though he couldn't think of any better word for it -- _estate_ , maybe but that sounded pretentious. "Okay. I'm sort of from the country." He looked around briefly as they went across a road quickly, eyebrows drawing together. "Hey, uh, do you know what time it is?"

Willie took out a phone from his pocket. "Just past the seven. But... time is different than it is aboveground, I think. Do you know how long you were in that room?"

Alex shook his head. "No, I don't have a watch or anything. It must've been a few hours... oh, gods above, Luke's going to kill me," he groaned at the end.

"Luke?" Willie echoed with a note of curiosity.

"My friend," Alex clarified, frowning in thought as the two stopped at another crosswalk. "He's from the Summer Kingdom, son of a duke. We go to school together, I've known him forever."

Willie nodded in a polite kind of way. "Like, a boarding school?"

"Yeah." Alex fidgeted with his hands as they turned down a street. Willie was nice, but gods, he missed normalcy. The idea of idle evenings back in his dorm with Luke and Reggie was far away and nostalgic. "We're in a band with a couple of our other friends. We did lots of practice back at school, but since we're on break now, Luke wanted to do calls and talk about music. He's, uh, super into it."

"You're in a band?" Willie sounded almost impressed and it definitely did not make Alex's heart flutter as they went across the crosswalk. 

He looked down at the sidewalk, down at his sneakers, which was probably a bad thing to do in the middle of the road. "Yeah. We've done a couple gigs in the town, and a couple of school dances. Uh, Julie and the Phantoms. Tell your friends," he said with weak jazz hands, a very subdued version of what Reggie would've done.

"Julie and the Phantoms?" asked Willie, bemused. "Why that name?"

"Well, Julie, she's the frontman. Or, er, woman? Girl? But she's really talented. One side of her family, I forget which -- they're descended from a Muse," explained Alex, smiling as he thought back to his close friends. "Luke, me, and our other friend, Reggie, we're the Phantoms. We were experimenting with holograms in the beginning of the band, so Flynn -- she's Julie's friend, kinda our manager -- thought of it."

"Oh, cool," Willie said, and he did sound actually impressed. "What do you play?"

"Drums. It's good for me. I'm... a little uptight," admitted Alex sheepishly, immediately wondering why he was saying this. "And, well, nothing better than wailing out on drums to get out anxiety."

Willie laughed then, his whole face lighting up in a way that seemed near angelic. "Hey, man, whatever works."

Alex looked back at the ground, cheeks pinking some. "Yeah. Um, what about you? What do you here?" 

Willie looked surprised that he was getting asked. He shrugged. "Uh, I skateboard a lot, around the city. I like art, too," he added, smiling absently. "I'm in a kind of training school right now, but we're on break. Just like you guys."

Alex mulled this over, trying to think of one of those well-thought-out questions like Willie had asked him. He sidestepped another group of people walking, going to the edge of the sidewalk. "What are you, um, training for?"

"I, well -- dude, watch out!" exclaimed Willie, grabbing Alex's arm and pulling him back; a large truck had been driving dangerously close to the side of the road. Alex's breath caught in his throat in shock and he stood paralyzed for a moment.

"Holy shit," he gasped out, wheezing slightly, heartbeat thumping loudly in his ears, deafening. "You -- oh, gods, how did I not see that?"

"Hey, hey -- hey, _Alex_ ," prodded Willie, gentle but stern, "take a breath for me, it's okay. You're fine."

Alex bit the inside of his cheek, nodding quickly, trying to steady his breathing. After a moment, he felt a bit less scattered -- but immediately less so when he noticed that Willie was still holding his arm. "I, uh, thank you. For, uh... saving my life, probably."

Willie's grip on Alex's arm lessened, but he didn't quite let go. "It was nothing. But, um, you're welcome."

They stood there in a kind of awkward pause before Willie shoved his hand into the pockets of his shorts. Alex scratched the back of his neck, which was warming. "Er, how far are we exactly?" he asked, looking to the administration tower -- it looked pretty close, but there were some other buildings surrounding it.

"Close," Willie said, beginning to walk again. "Yeah, pretty close. I just have to check in at security with my, um, identity, and then we can find out what to do."

Alex sped up, walking in stride with Willie. "Yeah, okay. Cool." 

\---

They did eventually arrive at a small building outside the tower, where various security workers were around. Willie went over to one of the desks, saying something in low tones that Alex didn't hear. He did, however, see the eyebrows of the woman at the desk jump in surprise. 

He was ushered in, past the various security stops, though they did put him through a metal detector once, Willie close behind. Alex winced as more and more security guards and the sort joined him, the woman from the desk, and Willie as they entered the tower. The woman took a brief phone call and then sent Alex and Willie up an elevator, giving a card to Alex.

Willie whistled, quiet, as the elevator climbed. "This goes to the general diplomacy wing," he told Alex. "Makes sense, I guess. You're the prince."

There was something a little strange in his tone, but Alex didn't notice it; he was trying to calm himself down. Everything had just escalated so quickly again and it had made his head spin. 

"Hey, don't worry, you'll be safe," assured Willie quickly. "I'm sure they're just figuring out transport and whatever."

"It's just kinda a lot," Alex said, tapping his fingers against his thigh nervously. "I know it'll all be fine but it's... a lot."

Willie smiled in sympathy. "Yeah."

The elevator dinged and stopped at a floor. Outside it was a long hallway that looked like an ordinary hotel. Alex fumbled and took the card he had been given out of his pocket, checking the number. "Uh, I think I'm that way," he said, pointing to the right.

Willie nodded, pausing for a moment. "I'll come check on you in a couple hours, yeah?"

Alex smiled despite himself. "Yeah. Thank you, Willie."

**Author's Note:**

> bit of a slow start, terribly sorry for all the exposition. thank you for reading!! comments are appreciated <3


End file.
